France's colonial properties were thought of in the latter half of the nineteenth century as consolation for the bitter loss of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany. As civilian administrators came to replace military personnel in the colonies, and as more and more French settlers arrived, empire and colonialism came to play an important function in France's cultural self-presentation. World War I heralded the eventual decline of the French empire, a decline realized at the hands of the colonized subjects themselves.

00:00 - Chapter 1. The Explosion of French Imperialism: Reasserting National Greatness after Alsace-Lorraine07:18 - Chapter 2. The Drive for Empire: External Relief for Internal Instability12:23 - Chapter 3. Rise of the Colonial Lobby18:02 - Chapter 4. The Empire in Popular Culture26:43 - Chapter 5. From Military to Administrative Occupation: Regularization in the Empire36:06 - Chapter 6. Lives of the Conquered: The Indigenous Perspective and the Rise of Anti-Colonialism40:35 - Chapter 7. The First World War and the Decline of French Empire